‘How can my vote be deleted?’

Latehra tola has around two dozen houses of Adivasis on both sides of the road. Some houses are concrete, others made of mud and thatch. It’s an afternoon in September, and the rain has just stopped; the sky is almost clear. Some elderly women are sitting on the side of the road under the shade of homes, chatting and passing the time.

Her bent back and deep wrinkles give away Phulmani’s advancing age. She walks towards me with a stick. Phulmani was three years old when India became independent. Once she turned 21, this Santhal Adivasi from Latehra tola in Jamui district has always been on the voter list, until last month when her name was struck off. Now in her early eighties, Phulmani worries how the rest of her life will go – she fears that if she cannot vote, she will become ineligible for government schemes, vital for this elderly woman.

Vishnudev Hansda’s name has also been deleted from the list of eligible voters in Kanar Adivasi tola in Dubaratari village. As has Raju Kisku’s. And five more members of Phulmani’s family as well. They all come under booth number 14, Utkramit Madhya Vidyalaya, Khirbhojna (East). Fifty names had been deleted. Of these, 50 per cent were Adivasis when I checked. The final list, after revision, listed 661 voters in this booth.

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar was held in July 2025, and it deleted over 66 lakh votes, citing ‘dead’ and ‘shifted’ as major reasons. Read: In Bihar: ‘dead’ Adivasis tell their tales

Adivasis count for less than two per cent of the population in this state, but they were among those who faced the highest deletions in the SIR held before the recent elections. The tribals here are mainly dependent on minor forest produce from the nearby hills to run their households. They collect dry wood from the forest throughout the day and sell it in the nearby market in the evening, to earn around Rs.150-200. Apart from this they work as daily wage labourers in farms, for MNREGA and wherever they get work.

My inquiries that morning made everyone in the tola (Adivasi hamlet) rush to bring out their voter identity cards. I showed them the list on my smartphone. The Election Commission's Form-6 (for inclusion of names in the electoral rolls) needs a multimedia phone to successfully download the form and then upload the completed one, as well as other forms and documents.

“Where will I get money to buy a big screen phone? I don't know how to operate a phone,” Raju points out.

None of them had visited the booth to check. “We got to know about it from you,” Meena Devi, Phulmani’s daughter-in-law tells me. The booth, which is in a school in Khirbhojna, “is five kilometres away from my house. Going there means wasting the whole day and loss of earning. We cannot waste a day just to see the name,” says Raju.

“I can say with full confidence that not a single Adivasi voter has visited the polling booth to see if his name is deleted from voter lists,” says Nand Kishor Hembram. The 35-year-old is an Adivasi activist.

More and more people began to gather around and as I spent the next three hours checking the list on my phone. Each deletion was met with shouts of disbelief and cries of injustice.

“Itna din se naam hai, itna din se bhot dete aaye hain, kaise kat jayega? [My name has been there for so many years, I have been casting my vote for years, how can my vote be deleted]? asked a visibly agitated Raju Kisku, 51.

In the case of Vishnudev whose name was deleted, family members allege foul play. He is married to Munia Devi and is living with her in ​​her village in Dubaratari as Munia Devi was the only child of her parents.

Her father had eight brothers and had about 16 bighas [roughly 10 acres] of land, so two bighas [1.24 acre] of land was given to Munia Devi and the couple farmed it. But since October 2024, Munia Devi's nephews have stopped them from cultivating.

One of her nephews is a BLO. Munia Devi alleges that Vishnudev's name has been removed from the voter list to grab the land.

Vishnudev knows that his citizenship may be at risk as his name is removed from the voter list: “Naam nahi rahega to yahan rahne nahi dega na? Kya karenge fir...chale jayenge kahin [If my name is not there then they won't let me stay here, right? What will we do… we will go somewhere],” he says, helplessly?

In a few hours, it was clear that many residents had been struck off. By evening people went back home, dismayed and disturbed.

But the news of the wrongfully disenfranchised Adivasis travelled to the block headquarters. And a few days later, in what must be recorded as a happy follow-up, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) arrived on the scene and added back all the deleted names.

“It was around 11 in the morning, when two people came with a computer [tablet] and asked us to show our voter cards. They told us that the names that were deleted in the SIR process will be added back,” Jharilal Kisku, Phulmani’s younger son, told me on the phone.

The BLOs got the Form-6 for enumeration signed by the resident Adivasis, and took their Aadhaar card and voter card details. “They were in the tola [hamlet] for an hour,” Jharilal says.

Curiously, the job of the BLO was over after the final list had been issued. Their coming to correct was not scripted in the SIR process. Locals say this is proof that the news had travelled and political parties were taking note.

Subsequently, on voting day – November 10, Jharilal and other Adivasis voted. “We were happy that our names were added, otherwise we would have had to face difficulties in proving our identity.”

The results of the Bihar Assembly elections were announced on November 14, 2025: National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (United) recorded a landslide victory with 202 seats out of 243 seats. The opposition Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) performed its worst, managing to win just 35 seats.

The reversal of voting rights for the Adivasis of this village came a few days before the election, and allowed them to vote. It also restored their ability to avail state benefit schemes.

But they continue to be perplexed as to why and how it happened, and why they were shown as having ‘shifted’ from their ancestral homes.

“Our forefathers lived in this village, we have also been living here only,” says Phulmani’s older child, questioning the reason cited by ECI for the exclusion of his name. “We have never migrated to earn money. We remain at home. We only go out to bring wood from the forest and sell it,” he adds. Jharilal works as a ticket collector's assistant in a train, for which he gets Rs. 5,000 a month. “I travel by train and catch those who travel without tickets.”

Phulmani Devi has been a resident of the Latehra tola attached to Anandpur village since she was married into this village half a century ago. A Santhal Adivasi, she spent her days bringing up her four children, fetching firewood and collecting mahua from the nearby forest, and working on the family land of a few acres, held jointly by her husband and his brothers. They mostly grow rice for self-consumption. Now that her two sons and a daughter are grown up, she can rest a little.

When her name was deleted, she was upset: “If I do not vote, how will I demand [benefits] from the government?” When her name was back on the voter list, she planned to cast her vote, but the distance of five kilometres was daunting. “I felt bad I could not vote,” she said.

Initially, Raju’s name was deleted as having ‘shifted’. “How can you people say that we live somewhere else? We have been living here for years. I am standing right in front of you,” he had said to this reporter.

His wife Musni Devi died a year ago during childbirth. Their seven children – three sons and four daughters – range from 10 to 28 years. Two are married, and five are being brought up by him.

Raju brings dry wood from the forest and sells it to run the family. “It takes a whole day to bring a load of wood. When we sell it in the market, we get Rs. 200,” he says. Apart from this, during the rainy season, the forest department gives Rs. 400 per day for planting trees, but this work is not regular. He is disappointed with the government.

“Sarkar se koi fayda nahi mil raha. sab apna jeb hi bhar leta hai [We are not getting any benefit from the government. Everyone fills up his own pocket],” he tells PARI

Adivasi activist Hembram says, “the BLOs have done mischief.” He is Secretary of Adivasi Samajik Evam Sanskritik Vikas Samiti, a non-profit cultural organisation. “In my panchayat I found most of the names deleted are of Adivasis and Dalits,” says this graduate in Mathematics and History who is working towards securing a government job.

Activists argue that ‘weeding out infiltrators’ and ‘seeking proof of citizenship’ is not the job of the Election Commission. “EC has the right to stop ineligible voters from voting but it has no right to ascertain citizenship of any citizen. ECI breached its jurisdiction and asked people to prove their citizenship and the Supreme Court let it do that,” says Pushpendra, a former professor of social work at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

The attempt of ECI has pushed Adivasis to the wall, he adds. Already they have difficulty in navigating a thoroughly opaque exercise like SIR and procuring required documents. “They live on the margins, and SIR has resulted in their political exclusion by deleting many Adivasis from the voters list,” says Pushpendra.

Santhal Adivasi, Raju Kisku speaks for many voters when he says: “When elections come, everyone will come and touch your feet. During elections flatterers will request you to vote for this person, vote for that person. One vote has value. It can decide the win or lose.”

The SIR exercise and subsequent deletions sent shockwaves through the Adivasi community in Bihar, already struggling to get their dues and rights to land. Read: Santhals in the promised land of Purnia

Unlike in Jharkhand where they are electorally significant, Bihar has 21.99 lakhs Adivasis, notes a 2022-2023 caste survey conducted by the state government. They are spread across different constituencies and their votes are not sought after.

Besides the obvious loss of voting rights, it is access to the state schemes that worries them. Phulmani Devi gets Rs. 400 a month as an old age pension, and it has been increased to Rs. 1,100 recently by the Bihar government.

I ask what she does with the pension money. Before she replies, two of her grandchildren – aged between three to four years – come to her and ask for money. She unties a corner of her saree, and hands two coins of Rs. 10 denomination to each child. She then turns to me and laughingly says in Magahi, the language spoken in the Magadh region of Bihar: “Dekhalho na! Ehi mein kharach ho jaahai [You saw it! This is where pension money goes].”

Phulmani has always been fond of drinking tea, and says she could once walk 125 kilometres to pray at a Shiva temple in Baidyanath, Deoghar district of Jharkhand – the state was carved out from Bihar in 2000 – during saavan, the early months of the monsoon season.

“I used to walk to the Baidyanath temple without slippers. The women accompanying me would get tired and could not carry their luggage, so I would walk carrying their luggage,” she recalls, “I would walk such a long distance having only tea. It would give me energy.”

Her pension is spent on the precious two cups of tea a day. When her name was deleted, she asked this reporter: “Will my pension be stopped? Then how will I have tea?”

This story is published under the Takshila-PARI Senior Fellowship 2025.